912 karma · joined July 3, 2022
Getting 20 kg overweight only requires a 100 kcal surplus over a period of 4 years.
That's not proof that diet and exercise are not working, and it doesn't prove you need GLP-1s to resist an extra 100 kcal a day. Two slices of bread have 130 kcal for comparison.
And i am not the only one who is saying this, look at this: https://www.reddit.com/r/tirzepatidecompound/comments/1omfgx...
If GLP-1 are effective, then why do people who are using GLP-1 for some time need this guide (macrocodex's guide)?
Macrocodex has 16,000+ users and it's free, there are no ads so there is nothing to sell there.
Here you can see our GLP dosing protocol: https://macrocodex.app/knowledge/rethink/glp-1-agonists-dosi...
Our group has 2000+ people and macrocodex users beat GLP1 drug users by long shot.
You can find even more evidence by searching for "macrocodex" reviews. Very simple and doesn't cost anything
Some people have an agent-driven browser that controls the ChatGPT web UI and exposes it as a chat view in a custom harness or pi for normal chats (with image generation, file input capability).
Google PhotoScan (~2.1 pp MAE) may put it between DXA and well performed multi site Bodyfat Caliper by an skilled operator and WAY ABOVE US Navy circumference, consumer BIA ( smart scale with handlebars), poorly performed calipers.
But i remember microsoft research paper:
>In 2022, a Microsoft Research associated team published “Smartphone camera based assessment of adiposity”. Their Visual Body Composition (VBC) system used ordinary smartphone photographs plus a CNN to predict body fat percentage against DXA. In a 134 person, two site validation cohort, it achieved 2.16 ± 1.54 percentage point mean absolute error, with concordance to DXA of CCC = 0.96.
So from 2022 to 2026, we still don't have a model which can provide benefit to people.
This can help so many people using apps which currently simply wrap Gemini Flash to detect "body fat."
Unfortunately, none of these models, code, or training data are available freely.
These companies are seriously withholding public benefit. Currently, a guy who wants to get a DXA scan has to pay $50 in the US and 1,500-4,000 INR in India.
In poor countries this DXA may not be affordable to vast majority, if models are released we can perhaps setup even a "photo booth" with better cameras and widely available sensors
Companies spend billions of dollars on charity but not where it can produce benefit to the average person; so much technical talent, yet not a single public free model. This is actually a life changing opportunity if you can get it done!
Fasting is like using a nuke where a bullet would do.
How will a dietician measure your maintenance calories? How will they continuously update your macros and calories when your maintenance calorie change week to week?
I am making a claim here: most dietician will not be able to track your maintenance calories better than MacroCodex's algorithm.
Many dieticians simply rely on BMR/TDEE static formulas, and the limitation of this approach is that it cannot reliably track a user's actual maintenance calories well through the span of their dieting journey.
It's already factored in our algorihtm: https://macrocodex.app/knowledge/macrocodex/smart-calorie-bu...
If your maintenance calories are 2700kcal and you eat 300kcal less than that, is eating 2400kcal starving for you?
Most people cannot tell a difference if they eat 100-150kcal less in a day.
>Or in the sense that counting calories is broadly effective as a weight loss strategy?
Yes, it is, and the reason people fail with it is not because calorie counting doesn't work, but because people's maintenance calorie estimates are often poor.
Deficit = maintenance calories (TDEE) - calorie intake
In this, even if your calorie tracking is on point, a deficit requires you to have a decent estimate of maintenance calories.
To throw a monkey wrench into all this, your maintenance calories often shift downward as you progress in your "diet" journey.
I am not anti-GLP, someone who believes using GLP drugs is cheating and people should achieve that with blood, tears, and sweat. I see it as a "tool" in the arsenal. I've no use for GLP as I've no problem sustaining deficits as large as 600-700kcal for long. But I've met people who can't do this, so for them GLP is a valid choice, but I'd recommend they pair it with proper dieting and lifestyle changes.
You want to eat good stuff and avoid stuff not good for you; blanket reducing appetite may result in loss of both good and bad.
Here's what GLP users say about the macrocodex method: https://www.reddit.com/r/tirzepatidecompound/comments/1omfgx...
The guide linked in the above post is macrocodex's prototype method, which was later formalized into an app.
I don't want to make strong claims on this, but using GLPs may increase the risk of developing gallbladder stones, as GLPs make it very easy to eat far less than necessary.
A proper macro and calorie balanced diet can give you better results with a smaller GLP dose.
Use GLPs if your actual problem is staying on a "sustainable deficit." Many people who use macrocodex report they do not feel hungry when on such a small deficit, but there are a few who are hungry even at a deficit as low as 300 kcal; for them, GLPs are more suitable, but not a replacement for proper dieting and lifestyle changes.
How difficult is it? Just eat below the orange line to lose weight and eat above the orange line to gain weight: https://macrocodex.app/assets/hero-tdee-line.v3.1b8c60c2271f... In the image, you see the app continuously updates maintenance calories from observed evidence; on the homescreen, it provides the calorie and macro targets you need to follow: https://macrocodex.app/assets/flow-targets.v3.edc3f34458a1.p...
It was never this easy, imho. Many people used TDEE calculators in past, which suffer from the limitation described here: https://macrocodex.app/knowledge/rethink/adaptive-tdee/#tdee...
It's useful for both Newbies and Pros.
When a person figures out their maintenance calories and looks for the average metabolic rate / maintenance calories for their height, weight, and gender, they realize they are not "genetically inferior" or have some serious issue which is stopping them from progressing if their maintenance calories are within average range!
Just knowing that there is nothing wrong with your metabolism gives people enough push to continuously walk on this path and achieve their goal.
>I mean, observing the weightloss / gain or lack thereof itself will tell you whether you need more of a calorie deficit or surplus.
You can read app reviews and these will tell you, complete newbies are having great success with this approach.
If you ask a layman on the street, they'll tell you eat less to lose weight, eat more to gain weight.
The question is: what is less, and what is more? How many calories precisely do we need to eat to achieve 1lb per week of weight loss?
Your total calorie burn for the day changes week to week; people don't know how to make the right adjustments.
Many people crash diet; they lose weight, then they cannot sustain it for long, binge eat, and gain it all back.
What key knowledge are they missing? Sustainable deficit. If you apply a sustainable deficit over a longer period of time, you may not "suffer" as much as you would otherwise
I am not saying drastic deficits are not useful; they are to those who are experienced. Let's say an MMA guy or bodybuilder can do it just fine!
Also, for lean bulking in natural bodybuilding, you need a specific rate of weight gain; let's say for a beginner it's a weight gain of 0.25–0.5% of body weight/week. It's hard for many to achieve this precise range because your maintenance calories are changing all the time!
And if you are an advanced lifter, then the rate of gain you want to target is even smaller: 0.1–0.25%/week.
That's why pro natural bodybuilders use Macrocodex and find it useful.
Method here: https://macrocodex.app/knowledge/rethink/adaptive-tdee/
People can find the algorithm here: https://macrocodex.app/knowledge/macrocodex/smart-calorie-bu...
In fact, our claim on the app is results within 2-5 weeks for both weight gain and weight loss; I've yet to find a guy who did not achieve success with this.
Calorie deficit is the most effective method for weight loss.
What's funny is when people actually measure their metabolism with this approach, they realize they aren't far off from the average!
But obviously, most people are a lot more interested in finding a magic food which does this rather than a proven calorie deficit, which is highly effective.
BMI
Waist circumference (WC)
Waist to hip ratio (WHR)
Subsequent risk of nine cardiovascular/mortality outcomes in >260,000 people followed for ~20 years
To make it even more useful they should have included DEXA scan bodyfat%.
Also, BMI becomes somewhat biased at height extremes because body mass doesn't scale exactly with height². Humans aren't geometrically scaled copies of one another and empirical scaling exponents are often somewhere between 2 and 3. Conventional BMI tends to read relatively high in very tall people and relatively low in very short people. But changing the exponent would only fix one relatively small limitation of BMI
For better height adjusted replacement for BMI itself, one option is Trefethen’s BMI
WHR and WC is positively correlated to bodyfat% but this may get distorted for strongmen or sumo wrestler who tend to have much higher than average lean mass, may also have higher WC and WHR but difference maybe waist to shoulder ratio, they tend to have much bigger and powerful shoulders.
what's interesting is, for sumo wrestlers specifically, WC still correlates strongly with BF% one study reported r ≈ 0.86
There is a category in fitness called "skinny fat" where you are at low bodyweight (so low BMI) but your fat mass is relatively higher when compared to lean mass, so higher bodyfat%
Many skinny fat people refuse to believe they carry higher bodyfat% because they think they've low bodyweight so they can't possibly carry higher fat, which is wrong.
If you are interested in knowing more about bodyfat, this may help you: https://aretecodex.pages.dev/knowledge/measure/bodyfat
We've had many people who have unsubscribed from MacroFactor after using our MacroCodex.
Not just this, we've also built MacroFactor Workout's rival Symbiote Workout app which is also completely free! it's now in Beta and under rapid developement.
For calorie tracking, you've established apps like Cronometer and MyFitnessPal or they can use our completely free AI calorie tracker CalorieCodex! which does what you want! barcode scan / photo to calorie and macro output etc...
>estimating macros on food is the hardest part of dieting. So your app is great but it tackles the part of dieting that people aren't stuggling with and doesn't address the part that they do struggle with.
I believe MacroCodex actually targets the part most people are likely to struggle with and this is why it is able to provide guaranteed results!
This app is not a calorie tracker, though it can pull calorie totals and weight from other apps using Health Connect on Android.
To understand the problem we are solving, you'll need to read this: https://macrocodex.app/knowledge/rethink/adaptive-tdee/
We've had to design this algorithm to figure out real maintenance calories:
https://macrocodex.app/knowledge/macrocodex/smart-calorie-bu...
>Most dieting apps are pushing for the AI photo and barcode scanning to make estimating easier and though far from perfect, it makes the whole experience at least somewhat doable.
We also have an AI calorie tracker; it's CalorieCodex. It's in BETA and can do Barcode/Photo using BYOK AI.
And it's completely free no ads, no subscriptions, or donations, for the public benefit of improving health and fitness.
It's a guaranteed weight loss or gain app; results within 2-5 weeks! Don't believe? well just read reviews. We do not have Revenue, so no money to spend on marketing.
OK so that's brief description of what we built now flutter part:
The Flutter development experience is very smooth; you rarely run into any issues, just be careful not to block the UI isolate. Sometimes bad structuring issues or ui bugs may end up blocking your UI.
My experience is in Backend (java, rust, c++, go, ruby, python etc..) and this is the first time i built a mobile app. And same is true for other guys on the team.
Some limitations are from the underlying platform and not Flutter. Initially, I thought the lack of OTA was a dealbreaker (as App Store / Play Store approvals are a slow loop) and Expo might be better, but the lack of OTA made me structure the app differently and it turned out it's not as big of a deal actually.
We also managed to have a PWA app (for nearly free) by using Flutter web, so it also runs on devices which do not support the Play Store or App Store, giving us max coverage across the board.
We tested react native but found it slow (your code runs in Hermes VM so you need to write native code to offload) and dev tools aren't as good as flutters imho. Dart AOT, which is what runs on iOS/Android, is much faster by default, so you'll hardly ever feel any need to write native code. And when you do need to write native code, we use some for WorkManager and HealthConnect it's very easy! Just be careful with R8; you might have to set rules (though most plugins ship with rules these days) but if you are writing native code in java/kotlin you may have to do this on your own, or it can sometimes break things!
I am glad I picked Flutter over React Native! I had my doubts, but I am glad I looked at their "architecture" rather than the hype of the subreddits.
I am now just a consultant for a few companies and work from my home office.